House lawmakers will consider a Republican proposal to oppose the use of public school properties by local and state governments that plan to house immigrants who illegally crossed the southern border and were released into the United States.
On Tuesday afternoon, the House Rules Committee will take up a resolution that Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and Brandon Williams (R-NY) introduced earlier this month, titled “Condemning the use of elementary and secondary education facilities to provide shelter for aliens who are not admitted to the United States."
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Resolutions allow Congress to effectively go on the record taking a specific stance on a matter. In this case, Republicans are upset that New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) have proposed busing illegal immigrants from New York City into suburbs hours away, where vacant schools and colleges could be turned into short-term housing units.
“School resources should be used for educating our children, not covering for President Biden’s failed border policies,” Miller-Meeks said at the time of the bill’s introduction on June 1. “It is important that we keep our youth safe and ensure that only authorized individuals such as students, faculty, staff, and parents have access to school facilities. I once again urge President Biden to enforce our immigration laws and put an end to the lawlessness at our southern border.”
Since mid-May, 300 immigrants who ended up in New York City after being let out of federal custody at the southern border were moved by city and state officials into current and former public school gymnasiums. Adams said the city could use up to 20 school gyms to house people due to a shortage of available space across the large city.
Congress recently gave New York City more than $104 million to respond to the roughly 65,000 people who have asked the city for help upon arrival.
Williams said Hochul’s recent proposal to house immigrants in dormitories on the State University of New York’s, or SUNY, campus was especially troublesome.
“Parents across New York spend years saving for their child’s college education in our SUNY system. Now, with the stroke of a pen, Governor Hochul and her Progressive allies in NYC are exporting the migrant crisis into our children’s SUNY dorms & student housing,” Williams said. “These undocumented migrants are unvetted and unverified, and they have no place being co-located with our kids.”
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) proposed amending the title to replace "aliens" with "noncitizens." She's also asking the Rules Committee to swap out "aliens" in the body of the resolution.
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The Biden administration in 2021 ordered Department of Homeland Security agencies to stop using the word "aliens" and instead use "noncitizens" in statements. The term "illegal aliens" refers to non-U.S. citizens who illegally entered the country and do not have a lawful presence to remain.
The resolution will go before the Rules Committee at 3 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.